It's very easy to adopt a posture of above-it-all cynicism, and to think that anyone who sees an important distinction between two flawed powerful people is a sucker. But it's not particularly smart or sophisticated, and it's not helpful. In politics, the assumption that they're all equally corrupt and sociopathic is exactly what the worst of them want us to default to. In rich-guy PR wars, too, it's only going to work to the benefit of the ones with 0 principles, at the expense of the ones with some principles.
(Or, if the maximally cynical perspective is correct and 'principles' always actually means 'a company culture and public image that depends on the appearance of having principles, and which requires costly signals of principledness to maintain' -- well, why on earth shouldn't we favour the ones who have that property over the ones who are nakedly unprincipled, and the ones who have a paper-thin veneer that doesn't meaningfully affect their behaviour? It would be stupid to throw away the one bit of leverage we have to make powerful people behave better than they otherwise would.)
This seems obvious in retrospect! I've often wondered why Chrome's bookmarks (and, to a lesser extent, history) system is so bad, even to the point of thinking it was a bit suspicious, but I didn't put 2 and 2 together and realise that a better version could directly hurt Google's search business.
At this point I think they're targeting two groups: people who aren't paying much attention to this but may see the occasional headline or tweet or soundbite; and people (such as OpenAI employees, and users who might feel compelled to boycott but really don't want to) who are motivated not to see OpenAI as the bad guy and really just need a fig leaf.
I think it's dumber than that; the terms of the contract, as posted by OpenAI (https://openai.com/index/our-agreement-with-the-department-o...), are basically just "all lawful purposes" plus some extra words that don't modify that in any significant way.
> The Department of War may use the AI System for all lawful purposes, consistent with applicable law, operational requirements, and well-established safety and oversight protocols. The AI System will not be used to independently direct autonomous weapons in any case where law, regulation, or Department policy requires human control, nor will it be used to assume other high-stakes decisions that require approval by a human decisionmaker under the same authorities. Per DoD Directive 3000.09 (dtd 25 January 2023), any use of AI in autonomous and semi-autonomous systems must undergo rigorous verification, validation, and testing to ensure they perform as intended in realistic environments before deployment.
> For intelligence activities, any handling of private information will comply with the Fourth Amendment, the National Security Act of 1947 and the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act of 1978, Executive Order 12333, and applicable DoD directives requiring a defined foreign intelligence purpose. The AI System shall not be used for unconstrained monitoring of U.S. persons’ private information as consistent with these authorities. The system shall also not be used for domestic law-enforcement activities except as permitted by the Posse Comitatus Act and other applicable law.
So it seems that Anthropic's terms were 'no mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous killbots', the government demanded 'all lawful use', and the OpenAI deal is 'all lawful use, but not mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous killbots... unless mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous killbots are lawful, in which case go ahead'.
> My understanding is that the OpenAI deal disallows domestic mass surveillance and autonomous weapons,
In that case, what on earth just happened?
The government was so intent on amending the Anthropic deal to allow 'all lawful use', at the government's sole discretion, that it is now pretty much trying to destroy Anthropic in retaliation for refusing this. Now, almost immediately, the government has entered into a deal with OpenAI that apparently disallows the two use cases that were the main sticking points for Anthropic.
Do you not see something very, very wrong with this picture?
At the very least, OpenAI is clearly signaling to the government that it can steamroll OpenAI on these issues whenever it wants to. Or do you believe OpenAI will stand firm, even having seen what happened to Anthropic (and immediately moved in to profit from it)?
> and that OpenAI is asking for the same terms for other AI companies (so that we can continue competing on the basis of differing services and not differing scruples)
If OpenAI leadership sincerely wanted this, they just squandered the best chance they could ever have had to make it happen! Actual solidarity with Anthropic could have had a huge impact.
Am I wrong to think that such an agreement is basically meaningless? OpenAI gets to say there are limits, the government gets to do whatever it wants, and OpenAI will be very happy not to know about it.
Bingo. You don’t have to read much into this if you remember how the DoD uses the word trust. In their world, a "trusted" system is one that has the power to break your security if it goes wrong. So when they say "unrestricted use," the likely meaning isn’t just fewer guardrails it’s that the vendor doesn’t get to monitor or audit how the system is being used. In other words, the government isn’t handing a private company visibility into sensitive operations.
Is there any reason at all to believe the account of the unnamed "defence official"? Whatever your position on this administration, you know that it lies like the rest of us breathe. With a denial from the other side and a lack of any actual evidence, why should I give it non-negligible credence?
It is bizarre. I like how, "past performance predicts future performance" is supposed to apply to founders and companies but completely disregarded for a two term president and admin, as if we have no idea how they will operate in the future.
Anthropic, with its current war chest, is supposedly employeeing lawyers that are misunderstanding the Department of War? This is considered to be the likelier of possibilities, am I understanding this correctly?
This is not what I said, and not what the WaPo quoted. We're talking about the CEO, who is shall we say unfamiliar with war making, getting asked a hypothetical about how the product he sells would perform in a first strike scenario, and he reportedly gives what is an entirely legalese answer. Yes, I consider this a likely possibility. It sounds exactly like how someone would respond if they've been swimming in legal memos for months.
> It sounds exactly like how someone would respond if they've been swimming in legal memos for months.
I think you're being highly speculative. The part you quoted from the WaPo doesn't even state the defense official was complaining about about any "legalese" reponse, that seems like a projection on your part. The only info you gave in your comment about what Dario said is only a defense official's paraphrasing. It seems a simply case of Dario refusing to give a blank check in all scenerios whereas the defense official, for maximum impact, chose to portray "not having a blank check" as "having to call Anthropic" in every case
where "help" is given by an LLM. The appearance of "misunderstanding" you're seeing in the media is not about the parties' misunderstanding of what the other side wants, it's simply a fallout from each side fighting to control the narrative.
That's a copout and you know it. You're focusing on the 'unnamed' part; I'm focusing on the 'representative of an administration that lies constantly and brazenly' part.
Noted Rationalist responds to a question about a first strike scenario with "I need to think about it" instead of "of course we'd launch the missiles, are you kidding?" and everyone here seems to think this is somehow unbelievable.
You're still dancing around the point. Person A said X; person B said not X; we have no concrete evidence either way. Person A is an anonymous representative of a group that has no norms against dishonesty, an obvious motive to falsely claim X, and a track record of telling frequent, shameless lies. X doesn't need to be 'unbelievable' for me to ask, again, what positive reason do you have for believing it?
> I think anthropic wants their cake and to eat it too. You can't take a principled stand against something and then be shocked the thing you are taking a principled stand against might think you are a risk.
Is it a principled stand or not? In your first comment, you said 'anthropic's "moral" stances are bullshit', their actions here are merely (or at least primarily) a successful marketing exercise, and the result is "a win for both sides". Are you now acknowledging that it's a costly, risky action on Anthropic's part? Because you haven't said anything to refute that; you've just changed the subject.
I believe that anthropic is trying to frame it that way. My point is that if you accept their framing then this whole thing falls apart. That is true regardless of if its actually principled or not.
> Are you now acknowledging that it's a costly, risky action on Anthropic's part?
I'll acknowledge its a risky strategy. Whether its costly depends on the result of that risk.
> If the US buys from a defense contractor who bought from abthropic, that really isn't that different from buying direct. The moral hazard is still there and the risk that anthropic will try to prevent their product from being used in that fashion is still there.
You need to look closer at how the government is trying to use the 'supply chain risk' designation. Hegseth said this:
> Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.
It remains to be seen whether they'll actually be able to enforce this. But it clearly goes far beyond what would be justified by the kind of supply chain risk you are describing.
>You need to look closer at how the government is trying to use the 'supply chain risk' designation. Hegseth said this:
>> Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.
If Anthropic is really serious about their moral stances they could themselves refuse to sell indirectly to us military. Militarirs are ultimately about killing people. So yes, if the supply chain risk is that anthropic might suddenly pull out of military projects and leave people depending on them high and dry, this seems like an appropriate response.
> So yes, if the supply chain risk is that anthropic might suddenly pull out of military projects and leave people depending on them high and dry, this seems like an appropriate response.
But it is so much broader than that! He's saying that if any part of a company does any business with the US military, said company cannot do any business with Anthropic. How could that possibly be necessary to avoid the risk "that anthropic might suddenly pull out of military projects"?
That makes sense, but then what is the purpose of the 'foe' label? I can see the logic behind using it as a time-saver (as described by conesus) or a reminder that engagement will probably be unproductive. But if you intend to learn from and engage with the foe, it seems like the 'foe' label is just going to prejudice you against their comments before you read them, without much benefit.
(Or, if the maximally cynical perspective is correct and 'principles' always actually means 'a company culture and public image that depends on the appearance of having principles, and which requires costly signals of principledness to maintain' -- well, why on earth shouldn't we favour the ones who have that property over the ones who are nakedly unprincipled, and the ones who have a paper-thin veneer that doesn't meaningfully affect their behaviour? It would be stupid to throw away the one bit of leverage we have to make powerful people behave better than they otherwise would.)